Birthdays, childhood, falling in love, heartbreak, weddings and funerals: the songs you choose as the soundtrack to the important events in your life say a lot about you.

My Life as a Playlist lets you create playlists based around each of these big themes. Share and compare them with other people’s playlists, and discover the tracks that ABC presenters and other celebrities think make the perfect accompaniment to major life events.

You can also do quizzes and surveys to discover just what your music says about you, and contribute to important research into music and emotion. Click on a link below to get started now.

Quizzes

Romantic? Wallflower? Party Pooper? Take these quick quizzes to find out what your taste in music says about you...

My Life as a Playlist was created and produced by the ABC and the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, with the assistance of Design Royale.

About THE PROJECT

My Life as a Playlist (“MLAP Website”) is a new collaboration between the ABC and the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (“The Centre”). The MLAP Website focuses on our own lives and is an entertaining, interactive experience that allows audiences to choose their personal playlists for key moments such as weddings, birthdays, and funerals as well as love and heartbreak. In other words, put together a soundtrack to their lives. It’s also full of fun pop quizzes, longer surveys and historical information about music and emotions.

The Centre intends to use the data gathered as a research tool for their study into music and emotions since pre-modern times.

Please note that the use of the data on this website is for academic research purposes only, and will form the basis of a larger study by the Centre. Details identifying you as a participant in the quizzes and surveys will not be held in connection with your survey answers. Results obtained from this research may be published including at conferences or in academic journals. In any publication, information will be provided in such a way that you cannot be identified.

HOW TO USE THE SITE

Users can go onto the site and look around, browse through playlists, fill out quizzes and listen to 30 seconds per song without having to register or give out any information.

The music is hosted by a third party website, rdio.com. rdio.com’s media player and music catalogue is embedded on the MLAP Website but is not hosted by the ABC.

Users can choose to register with rdio.com for a free trial period and will get increased functionality, including the ability to make their own playlists, complete surveys and listen to songs in full. This free registration access to full songs will last for 6 months for desktop and 14 days for mobile and tablet.

At the end of their trial registration period with rdio.com, users can choose to join rdio.com and pay a fee for ongoing full access to music. If they don’t wish to sign up permanently, users will revert to only being able to listen to 30 seconds of music.

Registering with rdio.com is entirely voluntary and users who register will be subject to rdio.com’s registration terms, which users should check carefully. ABC and the Centre are not responsible for users use of the rdio.com media player and users registration with rdio.com is between the user and rdio.com.

The MLAP Website uses the rdio.com API but is not endorsed, certified or otherwise approved in any way by rdio.com, Inc.

PLATFORMS

This website has been created to give a rich, interactive media experience to users. The complex quizzes and surveys are best viewed and explored on newer browsers rather than older browsers such as Internet Explorer 8 or below. The use of a desktop or tablet is also recommended for this site as mobile devices will not give the full experience.

ABOUT THE CENTRE

The Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for History of Emotions comprises five nodes located at the Universities of Western Australia, Melbourne, Sydney, Queensland and Adelaide. The purpose of the Centre is to understand how emotions function in individuals and societies and how they have driven historical change. This includes looking at how emotions were performed and expressed in pre-modern dramatic, literacy, artistic and musical performances, and how historical perspectives have shaped our modern ways of engaging with music.

PRODUCTION CREDITS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

University of Western Australia

Professor Jane Davidson

Deputy Director of the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions and Callaway/Tunley Chair of Music at The University of Western Australia

Dr. Sandra Garrido

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, of the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions , The University of Western Australia

ABC

Head of ABC TV Arts

Katrina Sedgwick

Executive Producer

Jo Chichester

Producer

Tim Bosanquet

Multiplatform Producer

Greer Cornish

Development Producers

Kath Earle, Sally Chesher

Business Affairs

Claudia Lawson

Production Manager

Jay Ooi

Legal

Vanessa Bateup

Radio Arts Editor

Tony Macgregor

Radio Multiplatform

Simon Chambers

Quiz Writer

Geraldine Quinn

Editorial Policies

Kate Hickey

SEO

Jo Pham

Website designed and developed by Design Royale

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to the following for their contributions and efforts in making this project come together:Amanda DuthieABC Photo Archives

How does music affect us?

The Evolution of Music

This article is drawn from the book Davidson, J. W., & Garrido, S. (2013). My Life As A Playlist. Perth: University of Western Australia Press.

Charles Darwin argued that music, like birdsong and peacock feathers, has its origin in the evolutionary process of sexual selection. He claimed that the original function of music was to attract sexual partners, which, in turn, enhanced reproductive success. Various theories have been proposed since then, including the notoriously unpopular argument that music is merely evolutionary ‘cheesecake’ – a biologically pointless by-product of evolution which merely serves the purpose of ‘tickling the mind’.

Thompson [20] outlines 2 different categories of theories about the origins of music: (1) adaptationist accounts, which includes theories based on reproductive benefits such as Darwin’s, and theories based on survival benefits, and (2) non-adaptationist accounts, which argue that music fulfils completely different functions today from that for which it evolved.

Some of the proposed survival benefits that music may have conferred include its capacity to promote group cohesion and cooperation, to enhance cognitive and social skills. It is also proposed that music and dance originated as part of parent-offspring communication, promoting powerful emotional connections between parent and child [21]. Alternatively, it is argued that music is part of a more general ability to tune in to and influence the emotional states of other humans [22].

Steven Pinker’s ‘evolutionary cheesecake’ argument is an example of a nonadaptationist account. A more comprehensive idea in relation to this, is that since music is made up of several distinct qualities such as tempo, rhythm, melody, harmony and timbre which are often processed in separate areas of the brain, perhaps they evolved separately, some as adaptations and others as evolutionary by-products.

How does music affect us?

Thrills and Chills

(This article is drawn from the book Davidson, J. W., & Garrido, S. (2013). My Life As A Playlist. Perth: University of Western Australia Press.

Most people have experienced being deeply moved by a piece of music. However, a small minority of people experience unusually strong physical responses to certain pieces of music as well. They might get chills down the spine, goose bumps, or their hair standing on end while listening to music. This is often described as frisson, a pleasant tingling feeling associated with the flexing of hair follicles, resulting in gooseflesh (known as ‘piloerection’), accompanied by a cold sensation and sometimes, a shiver [1]. People often describe a kind of intensified perception or even out of body and trance-like experiences.

Sad music is twice as likely to produce these chills than happy music, especially in women, and it may be brought on by particular features of the music such as sudden changes in harmony or other unexpected events in the music [2]. Researchers have found that the chills tend to peak at intense and dramatic crescendos (increases in loudness) in the music [3]. Some of the particular pieces of music that have been reported to evoke chills include Pink Floyd’s ‘The Final Cut’ and Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht.

Research indicates that people with certain personality traits are most likely to have these experiences when listening to music. For example, people who are creative, imaginative and have a strong curiosity about the world seem to experience these strong physical reactions more than others [4]. They may also tend to be less adventurous or thrill seeking, have a strong musical interest, particularly in classical music, and are more likely to concentrate on the music rather than just having it in the background [5].

How does music affect us?

Does Music Make You Smarter?

This article is drawn from the book Davidson, J. W., & Garrido, S. (2013). My Life As A Playlist. Perth: University of Western Australia Press.

The ‘Mozart Effect’ is a concept that became popular amongst parents due to a great deal of media attention in the 1990s. Unfortunately, the great majority of people have misunderstood the concept and come to believe that merely listening to Mozart is enough to produce genius in their children. This led various U.S. politicians to even use the promise of free Mozart CDs to newborn babies in their election campaigns [14].
The misconception came from a study conducted in 1993 which found that listening to a specific composition of Mozart enhanced the spatial test performance of college students for up to about fifteen minutes [15]. (Spatial-temporal reasoning if the ability to visualize spatial patterns ad mentally manipulate them. It is a useful skill for architects and engineers, and is crucial to chess playing, doing mathematics and computer operation).This received widespread attention from the popular media who first coined the term the ‘Mozart effect’. However, there was no evidence in the original study that the effect was in any way specific to Mozart, or that it can affect the long-term intelligence of children.

Subsequent studies have demonstrated a similarly improved spatial ability after listening to Philip Glass [16] or even popular music [17]. In fact, the effect doesn’t even seem limited to music [18]. It seems to be caused by increased arousal due to listening to music rather than the particular music itself [19]. There is no proof of any long-term intelligence gains involved in merely listening to music, and certainly no proof that it affects brain development in infants.

However, an important distinction must be made between research on music listening and research on the more cognitively complex process of learning to play an instrument. Studies examining the effect of music instruction have profound implications for educational practice. Researchers have found that children may score higher on spatial-temporal tasks, and hand-eye coordination tasks after instrumental instruction. Early musical training may also strengthen cognitive processes used in other areas of learning such as literacy or mathematics [14].

How does music affect us?

Execution Ballads

Imagine listening to a newscaster sing a song about the grisly details of the public execution of a murderer. It seems improbable, but until recently that's exactly how European news media worked. From the birth of the printing press, information about noteworthy events was printed on cheap pamphlets which usually contained an image, a prose account of the event and a ballad version as well. Crimes and executions were among the most popular themes for the ballads, which were often written in the first person and purported to be the last words, confession or ‘dying speech’ of the condemned. The ballads were usually set to the tune of other familiar songs, so there was no need for musical notation. The idea was that the public could sing along to toe-tapping popular dance tunes. In one early 19th century case, the account of a beheading was set to a can-can melody!

This is the subject of research by Una McIlvenna's research from the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions. Her work looks at execution ballads and the use of song to broadcast information about public executions in the early modern period. She is particularly interested in how this stylised representation of crime and punishment could manufacture or manipulate emotions in its audience. How does framing the account of an execution in verse and singing it affect the reception of its message? And what are the consequences for that message of the multiple reperformances and repeated dissemination of the ballad? In particular, she focuses on balladry's re-use of familiar tunes, exploring the effects that this tradition has on how the message within the ballad is framed and mediated. Although execution ballads were largely formulaic in their moral stance, language and structure, she argues that familar songs carried with them emotional associations that fed into the new version. Ballad-writers exploited the listeners' auditory response to the original tune in order to increase the ballads' emotional impact, creating a genre that continued to be popular long after execution has ceased to be a public spectacle.

How does music affect us?

Setting the Mood: Does Romantic Music Increase Your Chances With the Opposite Sex?

(This article is drawn from the book Davidson, J. W., & Garrido, S. (2013). My Life As A Playlist. Perth: University of Western Australia Press.)

It is well established that music and song lyrics have the ability to influence behaviour. Violent song lyrics for example, can increase feelings of aggressiveness [31]. Similarly, one experiment found that male customers spent more money in a flower shop when romantic music was being played [32].

An experimental study published in 2009 demonstrated that women who were exposed to music containing romantic lyrics were more likely to respond favourably to a request for their phone number than the control group [33]. The experiment was conducted on 183 females aged 18-20 years, who were exposed to romantic lyrics or neutral ones. Five minutes later, the participant was approached by a young male with a marketing survey who asked for her phone number. It was found that the women who had previously been exposed to the romantic lyrics complied with the request more readily than women exposed to neutral ones. These results are similar to the findings in another study which demonstrated that men who were asked to recall a romantic episode in their lives, interacted more favourably with a female some seconds later [34]. The results confirm that media has the potential to influence a high spectrum of behaviour.

How does music affect us?

Music and Babies.

From the time that babies begin hearing during the third trimester of pregnancy, it appears that they are quite sophisticated listeners with innate abilities to process music. Infants have a remarkable ability to discriminate pitches and rhythms. Fast music may cause their heartbeats to become accelerated while slow calm music relaxes them. And it appears that they can remember the music they have heard in the womb for up to a year after birth even if they didn’t hear it again in the interim [54]. They also demonstrate a preference for consonant intervals (harmonious notes) over dissonant intervals (clashing notes) within months of being born, suggesting that this preference is present at birth [55]. The ability to hear, process and remember musical patterns also appears to be present in the unborn foetus. This fascinating area of research can help us to understand which aspects of musical ability appear to be innate and genetic and which are environmentally influenced.

Research on music and babies also provides some interesting insight into how music effects parent-child interactions in the early years of life. Parents seem to instinctively sing to their babies using a style of singing known as IDS (infant-directed singing) an expressive style of singing which uses high pitches and a slow tempo, with mothers typically singing to their babies more than fathers. Some researchers believe that music may function as an important source of communication and bonding between parents and infants in the early years of life [56].

How does music affect us?

Music and Animals

Although our nearest biological relatives from the ape family demonstrate little aptitude for music, a diverse group of other animals such as birds, whales, seals, bats and elephants are accomplished singers. There are some similarities between human and animal music. Like human music, songs in birds and whales seem to be generated by rule-based systems for stringing notes together into melodies. Rhesus monkeys have been found to recognise tunes even when they have been transposed up or down an octave (a distance of 8 notes) [60], but only when the melodies played are based on major and minor scales. They appear unable to remember atonal melodies (melodies without a central key or tonality). Pigeons have even be successfully trained to distinguish between music by Bach and that of Stravinsky [61].

Some interesting research has also been conducted which has discovered that if music is composed to match certain features of the vocalisations of primates, it may be used to manipulate their moods. Studies have also found that dogs housed in rescue shelters appear more relaxed when played classical music than when played heavy metal music [62].

However, some researchers argue that when animal songs sound musical to our ear it is likely a coincidence, since they function only as communication signals to the animals that produce them and do not seem to be sung for the purpose of enjoyment [63]. And unlike humans, it is generally only the males of the species that sing.

How does music affect us?

Earworms

Most people have had the mildly irritating experience of getting a song stuck in their head that they hear over and over again and can’t seem to switch off. This is known as an ‘earworm’ and although people have varying susceptibilities to earworms, they are experienced by around 98% of the population. It often seems to be a song that we don’t even like and apparently tends to last longer in women. People with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are also more likely to suffer from earworms [50].

Researchers have found that earworms typically have an upbeat melody and repetitive lyrics that can be catchy at first but can quickly become annoying. It may be the repetitive, cyclical nature of these songs that makes them get stuck in our heads. Often just hearing one word of some well-known lyrics is enough to get the tune going repeatedly in our minds. It is reported that Mozart’s children used to use this phenomenon to tease him by playing incomplete tunes on the piano making him rush down to complete them because he couldn’t stand having the song unfinished in his head.

How does music affect us?

Why do Some People Like Sad Music?

Given the preoccupation of the Western world with the pursuit of happiness it seems curious that some people willingly seek out things that they know will make them sad. Yet in the case of music and other art forms, they often do. Some of the most popular films are often of the ‘tear-jerker’ genre, and many of us have at times put our favourite tragic love song on the iPod and listened to it over and over again. In fact when asked to name their favourite song, about one in three people will name a sad song rather than a happy one [9]

This is a paradox which has puzzled philosophers for centuries. Aristotle called it ‘the paradox of tragedy’. He believed that the ancient dramatic tragedies allowed viewers an opportunity to purge themselves of negative emotions, known as ‘catharsis’.

Despite the fact that the issue has been hotly debated by philosophers over the centuries, there has been little systematic scientific study of it until recent years. One study has revealed that some people may have the capacity to ‘dissociate’ from the pain and displeasure that usually accompanies an experience of sadness when it occurs in a non-threatening situation such as listening to music [10]. Dissociation is a disconnection from reality that is often experienced in its extreme form by victims of trauma or abuse. However, most people experience it at non-clinical levels in the form of ‘absorption’ in everyday life. Absorption is an experience similar to daydreaming in which a person’s attention becomes so focused that they are unaware of the passage of time and the things happening around them. Evidence reveals that people with high scores in ‘absorption’ tend to demonstrate a stronger liking for sad music [10]. On the other hand, research suggests that people with mood disorders such as depression may have impaired abilities to regulate their moods and may find themselves attracted to sad music despite the fact that it only makes them feel worse [11-13].

9. Schubert, E., Locus of emotion: The effect of task order and age on emotion perceived and emotion felt in response to music. Journal of Music Therapy, 2007. 44(4): p. 344-368.
10. Garrido, S. and E. Schubert, Individual differences in the enjoyment of negative emotion in music: A literature review and experiment. Music Perception, 2011. 28(3): p. 279-295.
11. Garrido, S. and E. Schubert, Negative emotion in music: What is the attraction? A qualitative study. Empirical Musicology Review, in press.
12. Garrido, S., Rumination and sad music: A review of the literature and a future direction., in Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Music Communication Science (ICoMCS2), Catherine Stevens, et al., Editors. 2009, HCSNet, University of Western Sydney: Sydney. p. 20-23.
13. Garrido, S. and E. Schubert, Adaptive and maladaptive attraction to negative emotion in music. Musicae Scientiae, 2013. 17(2): p. 145-164.

How does music affect us?

Mirror Neurons and Emotion in Music

(This article is drawn from the book Davidson, J. W., & Garrido, S. (2013). My Life As A Playlist. Perth: University of Western Australia Press.)

Researchers have still been unable to completely answer the question of just how music is able to stir our emotions so strongly. One interesting theory involves an understanding of mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are believed to be one of the mechanisms associated with empathy. Mirror neurons are neurons that are activated, not only when a person does something, but when they observe someone else doing the same thing. It is these neurons that are believed to be involved when most people instinctively mirror the facial expression of a person they are looking at. It appears that this can actually induce the corresponding emotion in the person, causing them to experience an empathetic reaction to the other person’s emotional expression [35]. As argued by David Huron [36], we seem to be evolutionarily programmed to respond to expressions of sadness, for example, with empathy, which usually involves a parallel emotional state being invoked in us. Mirror neurons are also theorised to be involved in the phenomenon of emotional contagion and also in our emotional response to music [37].

Emotional contagion is the tendency to catch the emotions of the people around us and is often most powerfully experienced in a crowd of people, such as when we are caught up in the reactions of the audience when watching a movie at the cinema. In the same way, it is argued that when we listen to music, mirror neurons may cause us to unconsciously mimic the emotions that we perceive as being expressed in the music, thus inducing those very same emotions in us [38].

Privacy Policy

You are invited to participate in a study by the University of Western Australia and the Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions about the music people listen to at key moments in their lives. We, the researchers, hope to learn about some of the ways people use music in their everyday lives. Your participation in this study will be of benefit to both our current research and to future research on understanding music and its importance in human society. Participation in this research will involve the completion of several online surveys. Any personal or identifying information that is obtained in connection with this study will remain confidential and will be disclosed only with your permission, except as required by law. Identifying details would not be held in connection with your survey answers. Results obtained from this research may be discussed at conferences or published INCLUDING in academic journals OR IN VARIOUS PUBLIC MEDIA. In any publication, information will be provided in such a way that you cannot be identified. By choosing to continue with this survey you indicate your consent to this. Complaints may be directed to Peter Johnstone from the Research Ethics and Biosafety Office at the University of Western Australia, Phone 6488 1610, Fax 6488 8775, Email peter.johnstone@uwa.edu.au Participation in this study is entirely voluntary. Your decision whether or not to participate in this study will not prejudice your future relations with the University of Western Australia. If you decide to participate, you are free to discontinue participation at any time without prejudice. If you would like further information about the aims or results of this study please contact Professor Jane Davidson at jane.davidson@uwa.edu.au

Use of this website does not require a log on. You may register or log into Rdio for increased functionality subject to Rdio’s terms and conditions. Rdio is a third party website not connected to the ABC.

Your answers to the following will be used by the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions as part of their research about the music people listen to at key moments in their lives. No identifying information will be requested from you. More information available on the About page.